


girl almighty.

by flamebirds



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, I do not know what this is, We Love A Good AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:40:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21779236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flamebirds/pseuds/flamebirds
Summary: Bette Kane, aged nine and a half, thank you very much, has been living with her Aunt Kathy for over a year and has noticed some quirks, some things that cannot be put down to vigilante activity. She digs her heels into the ground and she starts her very own investigation, records kept in gel pen written in glittery notebooks. She makes lists, she notes down the times that both Kathy and Bat-Woman are MIA. She follows her aunt to her mysterious meetings and in this world, unlike so many others, Bette Kane discovers her true identity before it can rip her heart out.
Relationships: Bette Kane & Dick Grayson, Bette Kane & Kate Kane, Bette Kane & Kathy Kane, Bruce Wayne & Bette Kane
Comments: 9
Kudos: 7





	girl almighty.

Mary Elisabeth Kane comes to Gotham earlier in this universe. Before, it was when she was eleven, bright-eyed and brimming with confidence.

Here, it's when she's eight. She's tiny, a little nervous, a little scared. She doesn't have tennis to throw herself into. She doesn't have Kate, doesn't have her big cousin who might not be the best at talking but _is_ the best at listening.

Here, Mary Elisabeth has her aunt, Kathy, and almost a decade of emotional neglect hanging off her shoulders. She's easier to manipulate than she is in other worlds ━ but so much more sneaky, too. When her Aunt Kathy goes out at night, it doesn't take her long to figure out why, but in this universe, in this timeline, Bette Kane has never had anyone to trust before. She's been by herself for years, she assumes she'll be by herself for many more.

And she loves her Aunt Kathy in this universe as all the others. Aunt Kathy is the one that leapt at the chance to have her niece live with her and Aunt Kathy treats her respect, with kindness. Aunt Kathy is the only one in her family to be just that in a very, very long time, but it still isn't enough. Not in this universe.

She doesn't let Kathy know that she knows she's Bat-Woman. She plays along with the rouse, all sweet smiles and innocence. She'd give anything to be out there with her aunt but ━

But this is a Bette Kane with more trust issues and free time than she knows what to do with. In all universes, this is a girl who discovered a secret identity with ease, who made logical leaps and figured out who Batman is. She's _smart,_ so very smart and so very few people acknowledge that, in any universe, in any timeline.

This much remains the same. Kathy sees her niece and she sees a vapid valley girl, with more air in her head than brains. There's no revelation that this child had figured out one of her many secrets; there's no reason for Kathy to see her as anything more. There's no reason to put her in a costume of her own and use her for further manipulations, to twist this child, this innocent child who believes in justice and fairness, into a mere pawn.

And that's why things change so drastically.

Bette Kane, aged nine and a half, thank you very much, has been living with her Aunt Kathy for over a year and has noticed some quirks, some things that cannot be put down to vigilante activity. She digs her heels into the ground and she starts her very own investigation, records kept in gel pen written in glittery notebooks. She makes lists, she notes down the times that both Kathy and Bat-Woman are MIA. She follows her aunt to her mysterious meetings and in this world, unlike so many others, Bette Kane discovers her true identity before it can rip her heart out. She hears the name Luka Netz, she hears plotted plans of murder, tumbling straight out of her aunt's lips and a small part of her feels justified for all her distrust.

So there she is, not even ten, and holding onto a massive secret that could get her killed. There's a billion different options for her, a billion different paths across a billion different worlds, but in this particular one, Bette Kane makes herself a costume with the few supplies she has and decides that the only person she can trust, for now, is herself. The Batman has been working with Aunt Kathy and she's not delusion enough to think that they're not working together, that they're not somehow in cahoots about the whole 'evil super-spy' thing.

 _No._ This is a Bette Kane that didn't have time to think about Batman, that hasn't realized just yet that it's her cousin Bruce, it's the man that gave her her nickname. That's a realization for later, but for now, it's just her, boiling with rage and determined that Aunt Kathy, Luka Netz, _whatever she is,_ will _not_ be the legacy the Kane family leaves behind.

Every time Kathy leaves for her nighttime activities, Bette follows. It doesn't take long for the press to take notice of this tiny little thing, this child that can't be older than twelve, is out there fighting crime, all alone, and in a world where Dick Grayson still has living parents, there's a massive outcry to this. There are no child sidekicks; Wally West is at a normal human speed, Roy Harper has only just met Oliver Queen, Garth is still studying magic in Atlantis, and Donna Troy has yet to venture to Man's World. It's a world where something like a small little girl fighting men twice her age gets noticed, gets on the front page, gets her Aunt Kathy scowling at the headline and Bette Kane trying to hide her smirk behind a sip of orange juice.

Vicki Vale names her Bat-Girl (to say that Bette is displeased is an understatement) and it sticks. Grainy images of her in her makeshift mask make it online, travelling quickly, and the Batman starts his own investigation into who she is.

It doesn't lead anywhere. This girl, this new vigilante, has spent almost two years watching her aunt, studying her, and she'd have been caught ages ago if she hadn't picked up a thing or two. Covering bruises with make-up is not a new craft to her and she slips back into it with ease, the bruises hidden from sight. Lies fall off her tongue with the utmost ease and as far as Bruce Wayne is aware, Bette Kane has nothing to do with Bat-Girl.

She doesn't even make it onto his suspect list. And why would she? To so many people, she's the rapid valley girl without a care in the world. She's not going to be out at night, administrating some vigilante justice and trying her very best to find enough evidence to send her aunt away for good. Everyone expects her to be at home or at social events. They expect the perfect socialite in the making and that will always be their downfall.

She leans into the whole Bat-Girl thing. She's not happy to be connected to Aunt Kathy, but here's the thing: _neither is Aunt Kathy._ She seems so indignant that this tiny child has been linked to her and Bette would remiss if she didn't take full advantage of that. She uses Batarangs, some her own, others collected from the streets. She adjusts her mask to resemble the rodent just a little bit more and maybe she gives a little sigh, because _bats?_ _Seriously?_ She'd much rather have a bird theme.

Bette Kane is eleven when two very important things happen to her: she discovers tennis and, when she's on patrol one night, watching Batman and Bat-Woman chase down the Scarecrow, she meets a little bird. The tennis gives her an outlet, improves her reflexes, and gives her something to love, to work on.

Robin gives her a friend. Bette doesn't think she's ever had any, before him. Robin is smart and funny and helps her with her flips. She, in turn, agrees to keep their friendship a secret from everybody else ━ both of them know that Batman will not be happy about this.

It takes a while for Bat-Girl to let her guard fall down around him. He is, after all, the sidekick to Batman; he could be reporting back to him, for all she knows. It doesn't feel like he is, but she can't take any chances. She's had it in her head that the Batman and Aunt Kathy have been working together from the very start and she can't, she won't, let them find out all that she knows, not when she keeps on getting closer to having Kathy put away.

With every passing month, she digs up more on her Aunt Kathy. She uncovers Spyral, she finds plans to kill superheroes everywhere, and she finds herself, for the first time in a long time, very stuck on what to do. This is bigger than she ever could have imagined, when she was eight and found out her aunt was Bat-Woman, when she was nine and a half and heard the name Luka Netz for the first time.

She doesn't quit, though. That is something that can never be changed; her resilence. Across every universe, there will be moments, some long, others short, where she will want to quit, to scream and cry. And in all those moments, she'll pick herself up, put her shattered pieces back together and she'll carry on.

She gives herself a week of numbness, a week of confusion, and then she gets to work.

The Kane family is made of secrets. Her Aunt Kathy moonlights as a vigilante, just one of many personas she uses to get her way; Bruce Wayne fights for justice under the cover of night, trying desperately to make the world a little softer, a little kinder, than it was the day before; and her Aunt Adeline is the woman that married Deathstroke.

It took Bette a while to figure that one out. She only sees her darling aunt at Hannukah, when the entire Kane family comes together to celebrate and she used to spend most of her time with her cousins, Joey and Grant. But this is now a Bette Kane that's been on the streets of Gotham, that has run into Deathstroke the Terminator before, that has spent many nights wishing that would never happen again.

This is still a Bette Kane that figured out who Bat-Woman was through a hairbrush. She's going to notice the little things, like razor-sharp reflexes, the missing eye that just so happens to match Deathstroke, the same low voice, and, most importantly, the scar that her Batarang left on his right arm.

She doesn't approach him with this revelation. She's not an idiot; she knows he'd kill her. She waits until the next year, when Adeline arrives, recently divorced, with a son that can no longer talk and another full of rage. She comes up to her slowly, asking shyly for self-defence classes.

"I just get scared of walking alone!" She claims.

Adeline, the mother, not the warrior, smiles softly at her and agrees to teach her a thing or two. She and her children will be moving to Gotham, after all, in another attempt to separate herself from Slade and all the pain he's brought their family.

It's at the latest Wayne New Year's party that Bette Kane and Dick Grayson interact as civilians for the first time. Neither know that they've had many adventures in masks; Dick sees her just as somebody to talk to who isn't a boring adult or a pissed off teenager. They don't hit it off, not at first. Dick Grayson will always be himself, in every universe, an endless source of goodness, but Bette has learned to lean into dumb valley girl everyone has assumed she is. She makes herself as bland and boring as possible, the easiest way to disguise herself, and Dick is the first person to realize that, maybe, that's not who she really is.

But that's for the future. In the present, Dick thinks he'd be better off trying to get around Grant Wilson's prickly walls than engage in another conversation about lipgloss with Bette Kane.

And when he walks away that first night, Bette Kane doesn't bat an eyelid. She keeps on her pretty smile and nods along to one of her more distant family members rambling on about a recent purchase, like she's genuinely interested and not waiting for the first chance to ditch this place.

This is how Bette Kane welcomes in the new year ━ with deceit, with a perfectly constructed mask, with no idea what waits around the corner.


End file.
